Early, sensitive detection of clinical conditions, such as an infection or precancerous changes in living tissue, have significant beneficial effects for diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Factors that affect the detection of clinical conditions include materials and methods used to capture, concentrate, and/or purify biomolecules that are associated with the clinical condition. Additional factors affecting detection and diagnosis include means for detecting extremely small amounts, such as picogram quantities, of the biomolecules of interest.
Current techniques for the detection of clinical conditions are generally time consuming and involve considerable manipulation to obtain a suitable sample. The techniques also are subject to a number of interfering substances in biological samples that can render the test result invalid. Thus, there is a need to provide materials and processes to capture and purify biomolecules from such inhibitory substances.
The sensitivity and specificity of current techniques for the detection of clinical conditions is affected by the capture of nonspecific substances, which typically hinder the detection of small quantities of biomolecules. Thus, there is a need for materials and methods to reduce the capture of nonspecific substances when concentrating and detecting the presence of biomolecules of interest.